The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-07-13
A Much SIandered State.

1NteO VIZ SAtI6 INV N.0 W
SANDER the officials of Mississippi, and
at home and abroad delight
to charge them with being guilty of all
the crimes in the catalogue. It is
however, that the charges
are without specifications, and may,
therefore, be properly answered in the
same general way.
We enter our protest against the i'm
preston attempted to be made, that the
officials of Mississippi, as class, are
not the equals in any point of view, Of
those holding Office in any State of the
Union. Individually they are proper
subjects of criticism, but as class they
should be protected from condemnation
by wholesale, unless it can be shown, as
has been directly charged, that they are
members of conspiracy to rob and
plumber the people.
II there be such conspiracy who are
the members of it and in what way are
they profting by it? Have we no
honest officials? Are the Executive and
Judicial officers all corrupt? Is the
Legislature corrupt? If there be any
honest men among them have they not
the right to demand that they be ex-
eepted from the general Indictment?
Each individual is conscious of his
own honesty of act and purpose, and if
he choose to remain silent under a
deluge of Islander he may do so and
have an easy conscience the while.
Whether he shall speak or hold his
tongue is matter for him to determine.
Declaring him 10 be corrupt does not
make him so, however much such dec
laration may affect the esteem in which
he is held by his neighbors. But charge
of corruption against the ensire office
holding class of a great State is matter
of grave public concern, and if not fully
warranted by the facts, should be re-
PEELED AS the grossest SANDER. If it be
true, and the guilty are not punished, it
represents deplorable condition of
society, and if not true, then surely the
people of the State are not too craven
to open their mouths and deny it.
Time was when such ISLANDERS AZ have
been uttered against the good name OF
Mississippi, would have been refuted by
the almost unanimous voice of its news
papers. If there were an organized OPP
posing political party in the State to-
day, and the same condition of affairs
were alleged against the Democratic Of
| IL NOuIu IdlSt Il SlOIDu VI
citation and denial, the like of which
was never heard Why? Because it is
a condition which does not exist save in
the minds of those who are actuated by
sinister motives or their dupes. If il
did exist it would prove that the party
in power is corrupt party, and should
not longer be trusted with power; and
the Democratic press could not afford to
remain silent and assent to its exist.
ence.
Is any Just end to be gained by re-
manning silent now? Is the entire press
of the State to be muzzled, that dis
gruntled few may promote their selfish
schemes by discredlting the good names
of its officers and rejecting on the char
acter of its people? The Mississippi
painted by newspapers in neighboring
States ard at home, is not place to
which any stranger would be likely to
come. Do we invite immigra-
ton? Yes. What do we offer i'm
migrants? Surely not the kind of State
described by the Memphis Appeal in a
recent issue. II we did we would be
voted dolts of the most approved pat
tern. But if we keep quiet and allow
the appeal to portray the moral condi-
ton of the State for us, in what better
predicament are we?
The CLARION refuses to be silent
while malevolent and misinformed peo-
pie are engaged in the mischievous work
of slandering the peoples servants by
wholesale, and it protests against any
Judgment being formed, based on the
been the first to resent aspersions of the
good name of the State; for though it
may seem now, for Interior purposes,
that villification of the State and its Of
ficers should be submitted to, it will not
be long till the indignant voice of an
outraged people will find a mode of ex-
preston.